Wall hydrants of the prior art commonly have a valve means on the inner end thereof to effect the selective opening and closing of the hydrant to a source of fluid under pressure. The valves in such hydrants are normally expensive to fabricate. Further, these valves often chatter when opened because of the water pressure. The device of U.S. Pat. No. 4,316,481 solved many of these problems. However, the principal involved in the device of that patent was that the drain valve opened as the water valve closed, and visa-versa, providing the desired draining function. However, variations in manufacturing processes sometimes cause either a blind spot where neither drain nor flow occurs, or the opposite where both drain and flow occurs.
In the case of a blind spot, if a user did not turn the faucet off farther, to open the drain, the faucet could freeze and split. In the opposite case, flow could come out the drain at such a rate that the operator would get wet. Also, if the user wanted a very slow flow rate, e.g., to water a shrub, more water might come out the drain causing waste and user dissatisfaction - especially if a vacuum breaker or sprinkler caused back pressure in the outlet of the faucet.
Therefore, the principal object of this invention is to provide an elongated longitudinal groove in either the inlet valve or the drain valve to permit a slow and controlled flow of liquid as these valves are being opened and closed.
A further object of this invention is to provide means on such a hydrant that the user will have a visual signal, i.e., a controlled flow of fluid from the drain valve, which will suggest to the user that the control handle be further rotated to completely shut off the flow of fluid.
A still further object of the invention is to provide a hydrant that will permit the user to obtain a very slow flow of fluid without getting a flow of fluid from the hydrant drain.
These and other objectives will be appartent to those skilled in the art.